


940

by CrimeAlley1048



Category: Batfamily - Fandom, Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen, detective comics 940
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 18:38:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8113063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimeAlley1048/pseuds/CrimeAlley1048
Summary: So Tim's fake dead





	

Wayne Manor got dangerous during the mornings. That was one thing Duke picked up right away, or at least right after he walked in on Tim and Damian arguing in the kitchen for the third day running. The two of them couldn’t seem to last five minutes without supervision.

  
Of course that wasn’t going to be a problem anymore. When Duke opened the kitchen door, Damian was standing alone in the middle of the room, facing away from him. For a few seconds, Duke wondered if he was crying— his shoulders were moving up and down, and after yesterday… well, Duke wouldn’t have been surprised. He stepped inside.

  
“Hey. Are you… okay?”

  
Damian swung around. He wasn’t crying. If anything, he looked angry— the kind of furious he got right before he blew his top (Duke had seen it happen often enough to know the signs). He uncrossed his arms long enough to point to the shelves behind him.

  
“I can’t reach the pancake mix.”

  
“Oh.” That wasn’t what Duke was expecting. “Okay?” He pulled the bag down from the top of the cabinets.

  
“Drake keeps putting it up there. He thinks it’s funny.” Damian snatched the bag out of Duke’s hands and dumped a half-cup of powder into a mixing bowl. “It’s not funny.”

  
“Oh.” That made more sense. “So I guess this isn’t about the pancake mix. It’s about… what happened to Tim.”

  
Damian ducked down to rummage through a stack of pans. “I don’t care about that.”

  
“I think it’s pretty clear that you do.”

  
“I don’t. It doesn’t matter. He’s not actually gone.”

  
“Damian… Tim’s dead.” Duke didn’t enjoy saying it— he would have given anything not to say it— but it was the truth. Duke hadn’t been around that long, but he knew that Damian and Tim had a complicated relationship. He had figured that might translate into some weird grieving methods, but flat denial? That wasn’t good. Especially since Damian still looked like he was one inconvenience away from lighting the kitchen on fire.

  
“So?” Damian asked. The pile of metalware clattered loudly as he pulled a pan from the bottom of the stack. “It doesn’t matter. Grayson’s fine. I’m fine. Todd’s fine. Father. Is. Fine.” He slammed his skillet on the stovetop for emphasis. “Drake said he was, but we didn’t believe him.”

  
Damian glared into his mixing bowl. “I don’t want this anymore.” He dumped the mix back in the bag and went up on tiptoe, trying to slide it back onto the shelf, but he really couldn’t reach it. After a couple of frustrated attempts, he gave up and left the bag sitting on the counter.

  
“He’ll be back,” Damian ground out. “And when he does, I’ll—” His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides. He looked dangerously close to losing control. “I’ll think of something.”

  
He sat down at the table and put his head in his hands. Duke thought about sitting down next to him— is that what he was supposed to do? It was hard to tell with Damian— but it didn’t seem right. He felt like he was intruding. He wasn’t sure how to help.

  
“I think maybe you should talk about it, you know?” Duke suggested. “Work through what happened?”

  
“I know what happened. He made a stupid decision, and he got himself killed.”

  
“He saved a lot of people.”

  
“Stupid.”

  
“You did the same thing.”

  
Damian laughed in a short, humorless kind of way. “That was different.”

  
“How?”

  
“That was worth it.”

  
Oh. Duke wasn’t sure how to follow that, so he stayed quiet for a few seconds, watching Damian’s shoulders move up and down.

  
“Look… if you don’t want to talk to me about this, I get it. I can call one of the others.” Dick, maybe, or Jason. Damian was close to both of them, as far as Duke could tell.  
“No point.” Damian straightened up, face carefully blank. “He’ll be back.”

  
“Damian—”

  
“He’ll be back, okay?! That’s how it works!” Damian jumped out of his seat and slammed his chair underneath the table. “If Todd and I get to—” He cut off, froze, bit down on his lip. He pressed the heel of his hand into his chest, like it hurt.

  
“He’ll be back if I have to make it happen myself.”

  
Damian stormed out of the kitchen, swiping at his eyes and slamming the door behind him. Duke took his empty seat at the table.

  
Yeah. That probably wasn’t good.

**Author's Note:**

> To be clear: the end. No sequel intended.  
> And for timeline purposes, this takes place two days after the last fic I wrote


End file.
